Two men convicted over the gruesome serial murders of 11 people in South Australia may never be released from prison, a judge told them yesterday.

John Justin Bunting, 37, and Robert Joe Wagner, 31, showed no emotion in the South Australian Supreme Court as a jury pronounced them guilty over the Snowtown murders - the worst serial killing case in Australian history.

Bunting, a former abattoir worker, was convicted yesterday of murdering 11 people. Wagner was convicted of seven murders, in addition to three to which he had previously confessed.

The verdicts came after a marathon 11-month trial, which heard horrific details of how the murderers tortured and dismembered victims, and dumped their remains in barrels in a disused bank in the town of Snowtown, 150 kilometres north of Adelaide.

The jury was hung on a further charge against both men of killing Suzanne Allen, 47, whose decapitated and dismembered body was found in plastic shopping bags buried in the backyard of Bunting's former home in Adelaide's northern suburbs. Lawyers for Bunting maintained she died of natural causes.

Justice Brian Martin told the jury the responsibility for deciding whether the men should ever be freed now rested with him.

Bunting, who with Wagner defied a request from Justice Martin to stand up in the dock, was sentenced to life imprisonment on 11 counts and Wagner to 10.

Bunting sat with his eyes averted, apparently taking notes, while the guilty pleas were read out. At one point he shouted to Justice Martin about a third accomplice, James Vlassakis, who gave evidence against him. "I would have preferred you told the truth about James Vlassakis and the deal he made," Bunting shouted.

Vlassakis, 23, pleaded guilty to four murders and was sentenced last year to a minimum of 26 years.

Vlassakis described how the victims were relentlessly tortured and how Bunting and Wagner boasted the "good ones" never screamed.

Giving evidence for 32 days, Vlassakis recalled in detail the murders he had taken part in, and those Bunting and Wagner had told him about.

He said he was horrified at being shown the body of his best mate lying on the floor in Bunting's shed, and told how he was dragged into the killing of his first victim, his half-brother Troy Youde. Vlassakis described how the victims were relentlessly tortured and how Bunting and Wagner boasted the "good ones" never screamed.

Prosecutor Wendy Abraham said the eighth victim, Fred Brooks, was handcuffed, dragged into a bath and repeatedly beaten. His voice was recorded and later played down the telephone to cover his disappearance. A cigarette was poked in Brooks' nose and another in his ear.

Police Technical Services Officers remove items from a former bank building at Snowtown. Bryan Charlton

The court was told Bunting and Wagner had an incessant hatred of pedophiles and homosexuals, the prime targets in their killings.

Justice Martin thanked the jury, some of whom have undergone counselling because of the distressing evidence.

The case came to light on May 20, 1999, when police found six black plastic barrels containing the remains of eight people in the disused Snowtown bank. The discovery was followed by the excavation of two more bodies buried in the backyard of Bunting's former home. Three years later, police linked the 10 bodies with that of another man found in a shallow grave at Lower Light, north of Adelaide, in 1994, and a man found hanging from a tree in Adelaide in 1997.

Outside the court, Marcus Johnson, father of the last Snowtown victim, David Johnson, and stepfather of Troy Youde, said he was "delighted and very emotional" over the result.

Mr Johnson said he believed the killers had no remorse. "I have been looking at them for the past two-and-a-half to three months and I feel there is no remorse in them, none at all," he said.

Bunting and Wagner were remanded in custody to reappear on October 29 for sentencing submissions. Another man, Mark Ray Haydon, husband of victim Elizabeth Haydon, is due to be tried next year on three counts of murder.